Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Big Pink Heart...

This has been the winter of wood getting. May be even the year of wood getting as I have cut firewood on at least 5 occasions in less than the past twelve months. That a good thing because I thought I had lost my chainsaw chops. Seems I have them back.Some one asked me "what are chain saw chops?" Well just like you got some electric guitar chops, some tuba chops you got chain saw chops. It's what I imagine to be East Texas hipster slang and if you want to keep your chops up you have to use them. Now I don't keep my tuba chops up like I should but that old chain saw had me huffing an puffing and I thought that I might be too old to cut like when I was younger. Turns out I was getting worn out cranking a 15 year old chain saw and with the purchase of a new 20" cut Ryobi (I am now an official endorser) I can cut as well as ever.

This wood is from a tree that fell on the back of my property last spring. It leaned on my neighbors barbed wire fence landing right on top of a metal fence post but did not damaging the wire. Using the old saw I cleared it off the fence but wore down working with the cranky saw leaving the big trunk at a lean all on my property. I returned to the task this weekend cutting and splitting this wood for some friends. It's good stuff.

This was some kind of oak. It has a colorful pink heart to it. It's nice to know it will burn keeping folks warm. That's what everyone should do with their heart, burn so it warms those around us. I would have never elected to cut this great tree as it stood but in the world a time comes for all things. It fell. I cut. It showed us something beautiful.

I split all this wood myself and by then I was tiring. A careless hit with the maul and I cracked the handle. I'll have to replace it before I cut more. Here's a couple of photos of Morgan splitting wood when we cut downed trees on his property a few weeks ago. He has the same motion and good body mechanics as when he was a child and trying to split wood with this very maul.

So this is a story of how I got my chain saw chops back. I have a written agreement with my children to inform me if I start to loose my tuba or guitar chops to please tell me. And speaking of pink as Floyd said, ""Be Careful With That Axe, Eugene."."